Professional paper
Implicit Theories of Intelligence in Elementary School Eighth-Grade Pupils
Kristina KOPIĆ
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb
Andrea VRANIĆ
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb
Predrag ZAREVSKI
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb
Abstract
The questionnaire ITI-VIII (Kopić, Vranić & Zarevski, 2007.),
examining the implicit theories of intelligence, was applied to
the sample of 330 eighth-grade pupils. When describing the
intelligent person they list characteristics that can be
categorized as cognitive abilities (28%), practical intelligence
(27%), interpersonal characteristics (18%), motivation (10%),
"academic" intelligence and verbal abilities (8%), and other
personality traits and physical characteristics (8%). The majority
of participants believe that: in determining intelligence
inheritance and environment contribute equally (64%),
significant enhancement of intelligence is possible (57%),
education can have significant beneficial effects on intelligence
(51%), intelligence is very important for school success (49%),
as well as for job success (61%), intelligence has the highest
importance for accomplishment in mathematics (45%) and
physics (25%), there are no sex differences in intelligence
neither in their age (48%), nor in adulthood (45%), people
reach the peak of their intelligence between ages of 21 and
39, i.e. in the period of early adulthood (43%). Some aspects
of the implicit theories of intelligence are in the expected, but
low correlations. This is the first research in the field of the
implicit theories of intelligence conducted in Croatia on a
sample of early adolescents. The most important finding is that
pupils have implicit theories of intelligence similar to those
found in high-school graduates. This implicates early
formation and development of the concepts concerning the
nature of intelligence.
Keywords
implicit theories of intelligence; early adolescence; prototype method; exemplar metho520 d
Hrčak ID:
39003
URI
Publication date:
30.6.2009.
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